• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, September 25, 2024

There has been much hype about social media. But social sites are not doing a good job for publishers, judging by an analysis from Chartbeat, as reported by Nieman Lab.  

Social traffic to publishing sites has fallen from 6% of all traffic in January 2023 to 4% today, it was revealed during the Online News Association conference last week, based on the experience of 700 news clients of Chartbeat. Facebook alone had a 40% drop in traffic in that period.  

During this same timeframe, external traffic not driven by search or social sites has jumped from 16% to 20%, the report continues. 

We’re not trying to give a product endorsement to Google, but Google search is pulling 1.5 billion pageviews per month, 10% more than it did in January 2023. 

Moreover, referrals from Google Discover, Google’s mobile product, have gone up by 13% during the same period.  

In fact, Discover is now the “largest source of traffic referral” for The Hill, even more than regular search, said Will Federman, The Hill's VP of audience and content strategy, according to Nieman Lab.   

It’s rare to hear a good word about Google these days, between the antitrust suits it is fighting, the extended email summaries that now appear in emails and the settlement with California, which many observers have condemned because it appears to be giving Google a free pass. But the old search engine is still the traffic champ, even in this fragile environment, judging by Chartbeat’s analysis.